6. The public debt - Ownership The following table contains approximate figures for gross domestic product (GDP) and the national debt in the United States for June 2007 and June 2011. The national debt represents the total amount of money owed by the federal government to holders of U.S. securities. All numbers are in trillions of dollars. Total National Debt Held Outside Fed. Govt. and Fed. GDP Debt Debt Held by Reserve (Trillions of (Trillions of Federal Dollars) Dollars) Government Foreign Ownership U.S. Ownership and Federal (Trillions of (Trillions of Reserve Dollars) Dollars) (Trillions of Dollars) June 2007 13.7 8.9 4.7 2.2 2.0 June 2011 15.2 14.3 4.6 4.5 5.2 Source: "U.S. Treasury, Bureau of Economic Analysis."Publicly held debt is the portion of the national debt that is held outside the federal government and the Federal Reserve System. In June 2011, the publicly held debt as a percentage of total national debt was V . In June 2011, the percentage of the U.S. national debt held by foreigners was V . The fraction of the national debt held by foreigners will eventually need to be repaid to foreigners, thereby reducing the collective purchasing power of Americans. Between 200? and 2011, the fraction of the national debt held by foreigners V . The absolute level of the debt does not necessarily provide a clear indication of a nation's debt burden. Thus, economists often look at relative measures of the national debt. One possible relative measure of the national debt is the federal debt held by the public {outside the federal government and the Federal Reserve] as a percentage of GDP. In 2011, publicly held debt was V of GDP. Between 200? and 2011, publicly held debt as a percentage of GDP v